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The world of Goldman, according to Greg Smith

Meanwhile, the word “muppet” had become a part of the company’s everyday vocabulary.

“Being a muppet meant being an idiot, a fool, manipulated by someone else. Within days of arriving in London, I was shocked at how many times I heard people — both very senior and very junior, refer to their clients as muppets,” he writes.

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Clients were labeled muppets when they didn’t understand a complex markets concept or if they had trouble comprehending options pricing theory. Once a client was called a muppet who “had no f——— clue what he was doing."

The muppet allegation, which Smith also made in his Times op-ed in March, led to an internal investigation at Goldman Sachs, the Financial Times reported last week. The review, dubbed “the muppet hunt,” concluded that 99 percent of the muppet references in emails that came under examination actually referred to the movie of the same name, the FT said.

Why Smith went to The New York Times

The writing initially began as an exercise that Smith hoped could help him understand why he had started to feel uneasy about and disappointed by his workplace.

“On airplanes, in airport lounges, in hotel rooms, and in my flat late at night, I tried to set down in writing many of the things that were poisoning the institution I love,” Smith writes. “Then gradually, I started thinking about an idea: I could leave quietly, say nothing, and let the system. Or I could try to change the system.”

After several months, Smith decided to submit his piece to the op-ed page of The New York Times — the publication he thought “would have the most impact.”

When submitting his piece to oped@nytimes.com resulted in no response, Smith tried again — this time directly writing to a handful of editors. By the next morning, Smith had gotten the green light.

While continuing to work as a derivatives sales trader in London, Smith proceeded through the editing and fact-checking process under “conditions of maximum secrecy.”

Finally, before the piece could go to print, Smith writes that he received an “unusual request” from the paper’s editors.

“We need to verify with 100-percent certainty that you are who you say you are. We want to send one of our reporters to come and meet you at the Goldman London office to absolutely prove that you are genuine,” Smith said the editors told him.

In what struck him as something out of a spy novel, Smith received a visit from one of the paper’s London-based reporters, Landon Thomas Jr., on March 12 — two days before his op-ed would take off.

The pair walked to a nearby Starbucks, where Thomas grilled Smith about why he wanted to publish the piece and why he was angry at Goldman. After a 45-minute conversation, the two men strolled back to 120 Fleet Street.

“How are you feeling about this?” was Thomas’s last question to Smith. “This is really going to happen.”

Goldman Sachs is the poster child of the sewer Wall Street is. As an American (and private investor -voting right of center) who stands for our capitalist traditions many like I find their greed and 'under the radar' corruption of these maggots revolting! Anyone who told me they worked for Goldman Sachs (or most other Investment Banks of the same ilk) I would be as disgusted as I would in being introduced to a Nazi or Pol Pot. How can any of them work for such an offensive 'legal' mafia group and not be embarrassed/ashamed?! - I doubt their Mothers brag - "my son works for Golden Sachs" (like "my son is an attorney" - only slightly more repellent).

If the anarchist on Wall Street ever take over, the first to be put up against the wall will be all who work at Goldman Sachs - and I would personally join in machine gunning these loathsome parasites - and bring my own bullets!